


remedy

by weatheredlaw



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Pegging, Porn with Feelings, Stress Relief, Woman on Top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:20:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: Vanessa makes a proposition. Wash carefully accepts.





	remedy

**Author's Note:**

> it's finals week which means rarepair week is quickly escaping me and this is all i've been able to manage on my study breaks.

Kimball walks the base at night.

It doesn’t do much for her stress relief. Half the people she walks past tell her to eat shit and die, which shockingly enough doesn’t make her _feel any better._ But, still, getting out of the command center, getting away from the planning and strategizing, from hearing her own voice say again and again, _that’s not going to work_ —

So she walks.

The mess leaves snacks out overnight — granola bars, bananas, nothing _good_ , but right now stress eating five Nutrigrain bars sounds like a really good idea.

Though she’d rather not doing it with a Freelancer watching.

“...Agent Washington?”

Wash looks up — he’s got a labelless bottle of something from requisitions in front of him, and a glass half full. “General.”

She closes the distance between them and reaches for the bottle, turning it over in her hands. “You know they cut this stuff with water, right?”

Wash snorts. “It’d explain why I’m still sober.” He drains his glass. “Just needed some...quiet.”

Kimball nods. “Understandable, Agent. I’ll leave you alone.”

Wash chuckles. “No, no. Not...not you. It’s not you. It’s...it’s not _anyone_.” He leans on his elbows, scrubs his hands over his face. “God I’m tired.”

Kimball slowly lowers herself into the chair next to him. She taps the edge of the glass. “You going to finish this?” Wash shakes his head. Kimball tosses back the rest of the drink. “That tastes like shit.” She gets up and puts her hand on his shoulder. “Doyle has a stash I break into. Next time you need... _this._ Come by my office. I mean it, Washington.”

He raises a brow, fills his glass again. “Alright,” he says. “I just might take you up on that.”

 

* * *

 

Grif and Tucker run a mission for intel, and it all goes straight to hell. Kimball’s on her way down to see what happened, and she walks in on Wash tearing the two of them a new one.

“—only went over this _six hundred god damn times!_ ”

“Dude, would you _back off_?” Tucker snaps. “Everyone did their fucking best—”

“No, Tucker, _no._ Because when you come back to me, empty handed, down two jeeps, and three privates shot through the leg, then I’ve got to say, _that wasn’t your best_ —”

Grif steps forward, putting a finger in Wash’s chest. “No one is trying to fuck it up, asshole. Why do you pull the fucking stick out of your ass and try saying all that again.”

Wash steps back. “We will talk about this later. Both of you hit the showers and don’t...just...just _don’t._ ” He turns away from them, running his hands through his hair. When he rounds the corner, he bumps right into Kimball. “ _Jesus!_ ”

Kimball raises a brow. “Agent Washington.”

He opens his mouth to answer, cheeks still red with anger. He leans against the wall. “General.”

“I know it’s only been a few days, but if you’d like that drink—”

“Yes,” Wash says quickly, and lets her lead the way.

 

* * *

 

Kimball pours and Wash talks.

“It’s not about them not bringing anything back or the jeeps or the _legs._ ” He hangs his head a little. “Ever since they sort of...took me in, I’ve always felt like I owed them. Like I had to do _everything_ I could to pay them back or...or make sure they were okay.”

“You feel like they’re your responsibility.”

“Right. But then...then I see them, and I know they don’t need me. Tucker is a good leader. Grif is...well he’s a lazy piece of shit, but he knows how to take care of himself. They don’t need me breathing down their necks.”

Kimball passes him a drink. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Wash takes the glass and drinks most of it in one go. “I was a _dick._ I was a serious dick, and owe them an apology.”

“Then you’ll do that tomorrow. Tonight, you have a drink.” Kimball settles into the chair next to him, fills her own glass. “You didn’t lead anyone in the project, did you?”

Wash snorts. “Absolutely not. I was...part of a manufactured system that led me to believe I wasn’t doing my best. Pretty much at all times. There was a board. Had everyone’s names on it.” He finishes off the glass. Kimball pours him another. “It was just there to fuck with us. I couldn’t ever buy into it, but I wanted to, you know. I really _wanted_ to. Getting an AI freaked me out, it made me nervous, but when the Director told me it was my turn I was grateful. I felt like I could finally compete with everyone else.”

“Did you?”

“Oh god, no. Not at all. They pulled it. Right away.” He frowns at her. “You...don’t know this already?”

Kimball shrugs. “I know bits and pieces. You and Carolina have told me different versions of most of the same stories. It was Epsilon, right?”

“Yeah.” Wash drags a blunt nail along the outside of the glass. “He was mine.”

Kimball doesn’t know a lot about AI’s. She knows they’re useful. She knows Grey plays around with the concept. She knows that Wash doesn’t trust them. She knows Carolina and Epsilon have a connection like she’s never seen.

“There’s no board here, Wash. Your men, they do what they do because they know it’s right. You don’t have to teach them that.”

“Is that what you’ve learned in this war?”

Kimball nods. “Something like that.” She touches his arm. “You don’t need validation from me, and I don’t expect you to appreciate it, but you’re good at what you do. I’ve seen the other soldiers. They respect you, more than me.”

Wash fumbles a little. “It’s just going to take time,” he says. “Really, you won’t have to deal with that for much longer. They just need to adjust.”

“I know that.” Now she tosses back her drink, relishing in the warmth. “I really do.”

 

* * *

 

He stops as he’s leaving her office, bracing himself on the door frame. Neither of them are drunk, but Kimball has lived this life long enough to know that the chance to lower your inhibitions doesn’t come very often, or at so small a price.

“You’re good at this,” he says. “Probably doesn’t mean much coming from me, but I’ve taken orders from a lot of different people in my life and you—” He laughs. “You’re good at it.”

“I appreciate that, Agent.”

He laughs again. “Alright, General. Have a good night.”

She nods. “You, too.”

 

* * *

 

She knows that the problem isn’t just with Doyle. Inherently, intuitively — she _knows this._

The buzzwords people have used to describe her come, unbidden — bitchy, argumentative, insubordinate, short-tempered. But the one she hates the most —

“I don’t know _why_ you insist on being so _difficult._ ”

And Vanessa snaps.

It is her shortest meeting with Doyle to date. He simply stares, then turns on his heel and leaves the war room.

She goes to her quarters, pacing up and down. She doesn’t know why, she doesn’t know how it happened — but she hates that word. She _hates_ it.

Difficult is fighting a war with no purpose for years on end.

Difficult is growing up and trying outdo yourself over and over so someone will tell you they’re proud.

Difficult is walking off a bullet wound, working through a concussion, puncturing a _lung._

Vanessa Kimball isn’t _difficult._ She is doing her god damn job.

She goes to her office and pages her assistant. “Olivia?”

“ _Yes, General?_ ”

“Would you...would you send a message to Agent Washington for me? Have him meet me in my office as soon as he’s finished for the day.”

“ _Of course, General._ ”

Kimball puts her hands on her face and closes her eyes. She thinks about Wash in the mess the other night, the catch in his voice when he muttered, _God I’m tired._

“Same hat,” she mutters, and puts her forehead on her desk.

 

* * *

 

When Wash shows up, he seems a little surprised there’s nothing to drink, but — “Honestly I’m...I’m okay.”

“You worked it out with your boys?”

He laughs at that. “Boys. Right. Yeah, it’s okay.” He sits in the chair across from her. “You seem a little out of sorts, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“Not my best meeting with Doyle today.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

She waves a hand. “I don’t really want to discuss it.” She folds her arms over her chest. “I wanted to discuss something else. I’m a forward woman, Agent Washington. I don’t care to beat around the bush. I’m not especially _good_ with metaphors or innuendo. None of it appeals to me.”

“...Okay.”

“I like you,” she says. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you.”

Wash smiles. “I feel the same way.”

“Then maybe you’ll feel the way I do about this.” She leans forward. “How long has it been since you’ve had sex?”

Wash sort of chokes, flinching forward and furrowing his brow at her before he says a little shrilly, “ _Why,_ exactly?”

“The concept has been suggested to me by Dr. Grey more than a handful of times. I’ve just been...putting it off.”

“The concept of what, exactly?”

“Sex as stress relief, Agent. Keep up.”

Wash nods. “Right.”

“I like you,” she says again. “I think we’re compatible.”

“Jesus, did you take a _test_ —”

“Don’t sass me about this, I’m being serious.” There’s a beat, and then they both laugh. “God, I sound ridiculous, don’t I?”

“No,” Wash says. “You really don’t. I’m not new to the concept, I _do_ understand where you’re coming from. I just...I have to consider your position, and mine.”

“Power,” she says.

“Exactly.”

Kimball nods. “I know it’s a strange question, and maybe it comes out of nowhere, maybe you’re not interested at all—”

“I am,” Wash says. “Very much so.”

“...Alright then.”

“Just...give me a couple days to think about this. To work through our next recon and, when I’ve got it figured out, I’ll let you know.”

She stands and he does that same. “I guess that’s all I can ask for.”

Wash shrugs. “For now,” he says, and heads for the door.

 

* * *

 

She knows the recon mission is barely a success. She knows they all barely got out alive.

And so she knows the knock on her door at almost midnight is him.

He looks like hell. Cleaned up, but busted. Wash leans heavy on the door frame.

“I’ve thought a lot about what you said.” He steps closer to her. “And I think it’s a really good idea.”

Vanessa pulls him in by the front of his shirt, plants her lips on his. She hasn’t kissed someone for about as long as it’s been since she fucked someone, and it probably shows. Wash seems just as unpracticed, but he surges forward and Kimball shuts the door behind him, pulling him toward her room. She gets her hands under his shirt, yanking it over the top of his head.

When she pushes him onto the bed, he groans, wincing and touching a bruise on his side.

“ _Sorry_ —”

“Nah, it’s good. I didn’t get this far in life without managing to appreciate a little pain now and then.” He grins and gets his pants unbuttoned and shucks them off. Leaning back on his elbows, he looks up at her and watches as she strips out of her sleep clothes. “I was thinking about this the other night. After you asked me.”

“And?”

“This is much better.”

She laughs and jerks her head for him to move back. She’s already forgetting about the meeting with Doyle the other day, the terrible talk they had this morning, the spreadsheets she is pointedly not going over, the troop reassignment requests she still needs to sign.

And then Wash brushes a hand over her thigh, tilts his face up to kiss her slow. “Where’s your head, huh?”

“I’m here,” she assures him.

He tugs gently on her bottom lip with his teeth. “Prove it.”

Vanessa raises a brow. “That sounds like a challenge, Agent.”

“Well you seem up to the ta _ahh_ —” His head jerks back as she wraps her hand around the base of his cock and squeezes. “Fuck—”

She kisses his neck, nips at the skin over his jugular. “Stay right here.” She gets up and goes into the bathroom, fishing around under the sink until she finds the box of condoms she bought and then threw into the cabinet a few months ago, when she first thought about this. She tears into the box and pulls out a few before coming back and tossing one onto his chest. “Suit up.”

“That—” Wash tears open the foil packet and flicks it away. “—should _not_ be sexy.” He rolls the condom over his length as Vanessa straddles his waist. “But it kind of is.”

“I have a way with words,” she says. Wash sucks in a breath when she takes him in her hand again. She doesn’t need to touch herself to know she’s wet, but she does anyway, for his sake, dragging slick fingers over his stomach.

“God damn.”

She tips her head to the side. “I know,” she says, and guides him into her.

There’s a moment where they’re both rigid, so tightly wound Kimball can barely _think_. And then she relaxes, and Wash relaxes, and she sinks onto his cock with a long sigh, stretching her arms out and running her hands up the length of his chest.

Wash rolls his hips, mutters, “ _Jesus,_ ” before he settles his own hands on her thighs. “Shit—”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m—” He groans again as she raises herself up, then down. He shakes his head. “Take it back. I’m not okay. Fuck, I might be dying.”

“That bad?”

“That _good_ ,” he moans, and now he’s meeting her, thrust for thrust. It’s a stilted rhythm, and it takes them a minute to find something they like, but once they do — Kimball echoes him, she swears and leans down, kissing him and bringing her hips down as his come up. She’s missed the feeling, sure, but she’s also missed that _sound_ — when you’ve got the right rhythm, got the right timing, got the right partner, and skin meets skin.

Wash thrusts _hard_ , and the words are wrenched out of her — “ _Oh, fuck._ ”

“You like that,” he says, and she nods, so. He does it again.

And now she’s bringing herself down harder to meet him, and his cock strikes at her with _precision_ , in a spot that makes her weak, makes her legs tremble. Kimball knows she’s doing the same to him. Every time she clenches, he hisses through gritted teeth, like he’s trying to control himself.

“You can get loud—”

“ _Fuck._ ” Wash tosses his head back as he shouts. The line of muscle in his neck is impressive. Kimball rights herself and admires the expanse of muscle laid out in front of her. Later she might catalogue them, but she can name them now, even as pleasure fogs her brain and Wash’s thumb reaches up to touch her clit —

 _Trapezius, deltoid, pectoralis major_ —

“M’gonna come,” he manages, just before he thrusts up into her, groaning into the finish.

But she’s not quite done. She doesn’t think he won’t get her off, but she wants to come with him inside her and she’s already so close. She pushes his hand away, keeps moving her hips.

“Fuck, Kimball—”

“Just...just hold on—” She plants one hand on his chest, braces herself there as she frantically presses two fingers to her clit, circling the swollen flesh until she comes, gripping his cock that’s starting to go soft inside her.

Wash’s voice pitches high — “ _Ah, shit_.” — and then she lifts herself up and off of him, rolling to her side.

They lay there for a moment, catching their breath, staring at the ceiling, before Wash mutters, “Holy hell.”

“Good?”

“Jesus, yeah.” He rolls over with a groan and gets up, making his way to the bathroom. Kimball admires the view when he comes back, rolling to her side to face him as he lays back down. “Good grief.”

“Rocked your world, right?”

Wash laughs. “Yeah. You know, when you asked me if I wanted to do this, I figured you were going to top the shit out of me. I just didn’t think it’d be _that_ good.”

“It’s been a while since you got laid. Perspective’s skewed.”

He shakes his head. “Nah. I know good sex.” He holds up and fist and she bumps it with her own. “ _That_ was good sex.”

Kimball laughs. She reaches out and taps a few of the scars on his chest. “God, you’re a road map of disasters. Just one after the other.”

“It’s part of the charm,” he mutters, stifling a yawn. “Fuck, I’m tired now. I should get back.”

“You can stay,” she offers. “I could get you out pretty easy.”

Wash shakes his head again. “I’m not interested in putting you in that kind of position. It’s late, I’ll attract less attention this way.” He glances at her, furrowing his brow. “You’re gunning for round two, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

He sighs, glances at the clock on her bedside table. “Give me twenty minutes,” he says.

“Power nap.”

Wash snorts. “No.” He slides down and rolls over, settling between her legs. “I was just going to go down on you for a bit.”

Kimball stretches and runs a hand through his hair, giving it a gentle tug. “I knew you were the right man for the job.”

 

* * *

 

It’s takes a couple weeks after the first time for them to be together again, but they sink into it like an old habit. Wash doesn’t mind having her on top, and Kimball prefers it. She likes to watch his face properly, and she likes that it’s more relaxed the second time around, and then even more so the third.

There’s one evening when sex just isn’t in the cards, and she offers to go down on him, but he just shrugs and gives her a back massage.

“Should we talk about what we _haven’t_ been talking about?” he asks.

“You mean the fact that you officially have no military rank and I’m one of your bosses?”

“Something like that. I was a corporal, you know.” Kimball bites back a laugh, and Wash stops whatever magic he’s doing on her back. “I’m sorry, is there a problem?”

She looks over her shoulder at him. “Oh no. Not at all.” She snorts on accident. “ _Corporal._ ”

“Rude,” he mutters, and flops down onto his back. “I wasn’t in traditional ranks for very long. I got recruited to the Project pretty early. Spent a long time in training.”

“What’d you learn?”

“Lots of martial arts. Knives, too. Pretty much any weapon. Had to take a class on problem solving and critical thinking. We used to build pyramids out of cups and then see who could take them down the fastest. Language courses, _history_ courses. After we got our first round if implants we were constantly doing PT and studying anatomy.”

“...So everything.”

Wash nods. “Pretty much.”

Kimball turns her head toward him. “We still haven’t talked about what we need to talk about.”

He glances at her. “Are you worried I’ll feel like you’re taking advantage of me?” He sounds sincere. Figures if she was going to have this talk with anyone, Wash would be the one to take her seriously. “I’m a consenting thirty-something year old man.” He pauses. “Shit, I might be forty.”

“You don’t know how old you are?”

“I lost track of birthdays for a while. Lot of things are fuzzy. Not the point,” he adds. “The point is you shouldn’t worry. I get it, but you’re not exactly operating under a traditional military structure here. You’re fighting an impromptu war with people who refer to themselves as _space pirates._ ” Wash shrugs. “I don’t think anyone’s going to court marshall you for getting laid.”

“It’s not rules I’m worried about. It’s—”

“Integrity.”

“Yes. And...you, I guess. Half the soldiers under my command think I’m a bitch or worse. They don’t respect me, and I’m not interested in that being something you have to deal with.”

Wash nods. “Then we keep this to ourselves. We’ve done okay so far.”

“So far,” she agrees.

He sighs. “Look, this just...adds to the stress. We’re careful, we’re sneaky—” He shrugs. “And we’re having fun.”

“We are.” She leans in and kisses him. It’s a slow, indulgent thing that leads to his mouth pressed hot on her neck, his shirt rucked up, her hands down the front of his pants —

“I, um.” Wash clears his throat. “I wanted to, um. To ask you...something.”

Kimball frowns. “Why is your voice getting squeaky?”

“Because this is, uh. This is embarrassing. But I wanted to ask you if you’d...do something. For me.”

“...Okay.”

“There’s just...something I’m. I’m, um—”

“Into.”

“Yes.”

“A kink.”

“Well.” He pulls back a little. “I mean, I _guess_ it’s a kink—”

“Wash, spit it out.”

He sighs. “I want you to fuck me,” he says.

“I do. All the time.”

“No, no.” Now he sits up, and like this he seems so young and small, even though neither is really true. Vanessa sits up with him, knees touching, taking his hands into her own. “I want you to _fuck me_ ,” he says.

She blinks. “Oh.”

“You get it now?”

“Yeah. I get it.”

Wash nods. “Great. So if that’s not possible or you’re not into it, you just tell me now—”

“I can do that.”

Wash leans closer. “Seriously?”

“Oh. Oh _definitely._ I can absolutely do that. Not tonight, but—”

“No, yeah. Doesn’t need to be, like, planned, or whatever—”

She raises a brow. “It does a little.”

“Right. Well.”

“I’ll take care of everything. You just...wait.”

“Jesus,” he mutters, and falls onto his side. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

 

* * *

 

It’s a very different feeling, she realizes, as Wash leans forward on his hands and knees and she presses into him. One hand planted on his back, the other bracing herself on his hip — he gasps her name, a barely heard, _Vanessa_ , and it’s the first time he’s called her. Catches her off guard. She almost stops.

“Fuck, keep going, keep going, _please_ —”

She comes back to herself, fucks into him slowly before finding a rhythm they both like.

After, he doesn’t argue when she says he should just stay with her, and it’s easy enough to sneak him out early in the morning, one lingering kiss with his back pressed against the door, his hands on her thighs, her lips on his neck.

Stress relief, she reminds herself, stepping into the shower.

Stress relief.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ weatheredlaw


End file.
